When flights meet disaster in the mid-air, the cause of the mishap is unknown immediately. Teams are dispatched in difficult conditions to retrieve the flight data recorder (FDR) also known as black box. Until the black box is found, the exact cause of the crash cannot be determined. Sometimes it may take years to find the black box. For example, Air France flight 447 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on Jun. 1, 2009. The cause of the accident remained unknown mainly because the black box was missing. It was found after almost two years in May 2011.
The flight data recorder recovery is often a difficult job. Teams are dispatched to look for it in rough terrain and sometimes under the ocean. The delay in finding the flight data creates risks for future flights if the crash occurred due to a manufacturing defect in the model of the plane.
The current paradigm of saving important data into a black box has many shortcomings, particularly the difficulties in trying to find it after an accident. Therefore, some have explored the feasibility of transmitting data to ground servers in real time. The ability to reach the data without the burden and need for a physical black box has its apparent benefits. This idea has been discussed in the literature but no one has put forth a functional and effective method for the implementation of this concept, for example no one has determined an appropriate software scheme that would enable a universal system that doesn't need a black box or which can function in parallel with black box.